The future of D&T; what does it look like?

A question that many of teacher and technicians will have thought about, I’m sure.

The evolution of design & technology as a subject has seen some workshops being freed from the hustle and bustle of traditional machinery, becoming instead, what some would deem, clinical spaces where products are manufactured by contemporary equipment such as 3D printers and laser cutters.

When I cast my mind back to D&T lessons from my childhood, I can recall the coating of dust on surfaces and the noise of the machinery. Also, the difficulty in successfully measuring accurately and getting materials to fit together as intended. Making something is never as easy as you think it will be, but you learn from your mistakes. In later years, when I studied for my A-levels and a degree at University, I noticed more what we might call ‘modern machinery’ being used. The environment was less dusty and there was only a slight hint of sound from the laser cutter or 3D printer. You could start to hold conversations!

Throughout my early teaching years, I tried to maintain a balance of old-school processing materials using hand tools and simple machinery, alongside the use of computer-based design software and computer aided manufacturing methods. This slowly evolved, and more of the making started to be done on the modern machinery. Students appeared reluctant to get their hands dirty and were not always interested in understanding the intricacies of the tooling and lacked the dexterity required to operate the more traditional machines and equipment. The pupils wanted things done quickly and, where possible, for a machine to do the graft. I’m not saying this is right or wrong and, on reflection, this is how the world of modern manufacturing has developed, so why should our workshops differ?